Tim Parks - Goodness

‘You’re wanted in the lounge.’

I’ve barely turned the corner out of the cloakroom when I run into one of the church folk Shirley introduced me to earlier. The word ‘wanted’ frightens me. I would have washed my face if only the bathroom was empty.

‘Oh really. Thanks.’

I meant to hang around chatting in the hall at this point until the fire was discovered, then rush upstairs, save Frederick and report that Hilary’s room is already engulfed in flame. Can I spare a moment?

‘Hey, George,’ Charles calls through a group of talkers. ‘There you are. You’re wanted in the lounge.’

I’ll have to go. I cross the hall and start to walk across the parquet of the lounge, normally covered by carpets, where twenty or thirty people are dancing to African music I didn’t know we had. Who wants me? Is it a trick? All at once Shirley comes across from the window end and throws her arms round me in celebratory embrace. ‘George, where’ve you been? Everybody’s waiting for you!’

People dancing part about us. It’s like a scene from a film. Or a dream. It feels orchestrated. And Shirley has changed. She’s wearing a short black dress with glitter, the skirt pleating out high on her thighs, black tights with a zig-zag pattern, silver heels. Her hair is up with just two copper ringlets falling round each temple. A lot of make-up makes her look younger than I ever expected to see her again. I realise I haven’t really looked at her all evening. She must be mad at me.

She does a twirl, a pirouette, the motion lifting her skirt, then grabs me in a tight hug. Apparently this is prearranged because the music stops now and everybody cheers. But my ears are straining for some sound behind this sound. One of the school crowd, a small, smug, balding man in cord jacket and jeans, throws handfuls of confetti over us. Everybody’s clapping. ‘Give the girl a kiss,’ a voice shouts. But it’s Shirley kissing me, twining tight to me. I try to return some passion. Thankfully, the stereo crackles, starts, stops — somebody is having trouble with the faulty cueing device — then settles into ‘As Times Roll By’, or whatever it’s called. The appropriate guff, but loud enough to cover anything behind I think. Everybody is crowding into the room for the celebrations. Nobody will notice anything.

Tears glistening in her wide eyes, an extraordinary yearning look on her face, Shirley whispers: ‘Shall we dance?’ Her voice conveys infinite tenderness and irony. It’s a voice that says, ‘Despite everything, George, here we are, so we may as well celebrate.’ She begins to lead me in a slow lilting embrace.

Am I crying? I register such intense alarm. What am I doing? She hasn’t guessed the slightest thing. If she knew, if she knew even what I dreamt last night she might never touch me again. She might sense the lobster arms, the cancerous jelly protrusions.

Instead here she is being very sexy, pressing her whole slim body against me, her small breasts. The guests part into two lines forming an aisle down the lounge as we drift in slow and frankly clumsy rotation toward the fireplace end where a huge cake has appeared on a glass trolley. Behind it stands my mother, knife in hand, beaming almost tangible sentimentality. I recognise at once her Christmas cake recipe from Gorst Road days, it will be full of a pension’s worth of dry fruit and suet. Though instead of the usual Mary, Joseph and Jesus plus farmyard friends in adoration, another holy family are standing on the icing: three figures, toy figures, cuddly bears but dressed as human. There’s Daddy with a peaked railwayman’s cap, Mummy in an apron, and little girl. Us. Except that the child is standing up.

I glance at my watch. How long has it been?

A sudden hush. Mother pushes a knife into the cake. ‘Bless you, my dears,’ she says. ‘Many happy returns.’ Charles pops a champagne bottle. He says, ‘Good on you, George lad,’ in a fake downwardly-mobile voice. Shall I tell him that Peggy is having it off with Gregory upstairs? Around the happy figures on the cake, in rose-pink icing, Mother’s shaky hand has traced with how much love, ‘10TH ANNIVERSARY’. Loud cheers go up with the first splashing of champagne. Everyone crowds round to kiss and squeeze.

Then someone cries: ‘Speech, speech from the happy couple.’

‘Speech!’

A slow handclap begins: ‘Speech, speech, speech.’

My house is burning.

Shirley says: ‘Go on, George!’

I can feel the muscles in my face working. What is happening? Why has nobody said anything? Obvious. Because everybody is in the room here, looking at me. It couldn’t have been more perfectly timed. The jostle of glasses, plates of cake moving round, jokes, red faces, comments. Two or three flashes pop.

Frederick. I must hurry. Unless it has already gone out. Just say something and get it over with. Say something.

‘Oh come on, George.’

Why can’t I speak !

‘Tongue-tied by love.’

‘Give the man a drink.’

‘Spoilsport!’

My mother says: ‘Come on, love.’

And now I am perfectly aware that I am breaking down. This is what it is like, then. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My whole body surges with damp nervous heat. My bowels are melting. I gaze at all these faces, eager, grinning. They find my bewilderment so touching. Probably all I have to say is thank you, thank you, for this wonderful surprise. But I feel my jaws locked, paralysed. They will not speak. I can sense tears rolling down numbed cheeks. Until finally I manage to croak, ‘Help me.’

But nobody hears; my whispered plea is drowned in a fierce yell from the door: ‘Fire! There’s a bloody great fire. Everybody out.’

I should say, if for no other reason than not to appear ridiculous, that I always knew my plan was a risky one, that it could perfectly well have an entirely different outcome from the one I intended. Or, most probably, no outcome at all. At the time I reasoned that this was precisely why I was choosing it. In this sense: that no one with only moderate insurance and no financial problems could ever be suspected of arson against his own household; and second, that no one could ever be suspected of a murder attempt when the outcome was so spectacularly uncertain and in circumstances where so many people might, theoretically, rush upstairs to save the handicapped child who couldn’t save herself. That said, however, I felt fairly confident that in the selfish tipsy hubbub that is a party around midnight, the general reaction to a fire that in the secluded back study under cover of the thump of music and a haze of cigarette smoke ought to be well advanced before being discovered, would be to panic and rush to get out.

I was worried, of course, about Shirley and Mother. It was unlikely they would forget the little girl. Which was why I’d much rather Mother had never been invited, or had gone home early. But my idea was that I, being mentally prepared and well placed at the foot of the stairs, would shout commandingly to the others to stay down and dial 999 while I went up for the children. Given that Hilary’s room was directly above the study, given that both windows would be open, given that curtains are reasonably inflammable, and given above all that I would have the excuse of going for Frederick first, I very much hoped that on arrival in her room the child would be beyond saving, already liberated I liked to put it to myself, and why not for heaven’s sake? from the prison of her body. I would rush down with Frederick only seconds before the staircase was engulfed in flames from burning varnish beneath, and by the time the fire brigade arrived all would be over.